Rent to Own
10:36 Friday, 31 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 74.66°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 4.41mph
Words: 318
I'm going to offer an opinion about something that I probably don't really care about, Apple's new "Apple Upgrade" program.
Riccardo Mori has an opinion, one that I'm inclined to agree with on an emotional level. I've even complained about not "owning" things very recently, especially "intellectual property" products.. We "license" them, and those licenses are apparently revocable on a whim.
But I also believe "ownership" is an illusion. At best, it is an abstraction, an artifact of our economic system, and an unexamined belief in our culture.
I'm beginning to believe that "ownership" should attach to the producer, and that they should retain responsibility for the product throughout its lifetime, including its disposal.
I'm not sure how that would work for property like houses. Perhaps those should be "real" property, with title and responsibility. But consumer goods, like the electronic crap we buy to entertain ourselves, should remain the responsibility of the manufacturer. When you "buy" it, perhaps it should have a term, a defined period of sole possession and use, after which you return it to the manufacturer who is responsible for its ultimate disposition.
This would be horrible for the "retro" community, or perhaps a whole new business model for manufacturers. Sit on a returned product for 20 years, and then offer another term to oldsters pining to relive the days of their youth.
But this open-cycle of manufacture, use and unregulated disposal as "trash" is unsustainable.
I think we need to regulate industry to close the loop on consumer goods, and make every transaction something like this.
Apple's "rent-to-own" program isn't that, but it begins to shape the market.
I'm not confident we have the political will and legislative integrity to enact a genuinely effective system. But the current system is staggering toward collapse because it's unsustainable and to a large degree responsible for many of the challenges we face today.
✍️ Reply by emailAfter the Rain
Current Wx: Temp: 69.64°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 2.93mphWords: 197
We've been stymied by wet weather through most of the week. We'd hoped to pour the slab on Thursday, but the rain pushed it to today. The weather today is beautiful.
We got the radiant floor tubing installed this morning. The whole Parallels, Windows 11, LoopCAD exercise was a waste of money. I ended up doing kind of a SWAG on the layout. The great room in the basement has the densest tube placement because it will have the highest heat loss through the French doors and the window. The studio/guest room on the other side has the second-highest density because it's smaller and we've decided to put a small fan coil unit in there for cooling. Any guests should be able to dial-in their comfort pretty closely.
We got three runs into the basement bathroom, which should keep that floor fairly comfortable. The rest of the basement has very low heat loss so spacing is wider. We used three 300-foot rolls of PEX tubing.
Rebar has to go down and we should begin pouring a couple of hours from now.
(Update: No rebar. Mix has fiber in it.)
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailBullshit
16:14 Monday, 27 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 80.51°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 3.83mph
Words: 358
I'm in kind of a cranky mood. If there's anything I'm less interested in reading about or listening to than AI-anything, it's critiques of The Odyssey. As if this was a cherished childhood story that everyone knows and loves and "woke Hollywood" had done violence to it.
And while I'm happy to not be on social media, I nevertheless do encounter social media commentary about it, which reminds me why I'm not on social media. So many precious performers offering their killer takedowns about all the defects and deficiencies of the movie.
Bullshit.
But that's not the reason for this post.
Once again I have the throbbing vein in the temple and I must vent my spleen over a privileged old white guy (not Christopher Nolan) offering a vision of the future that is totally divorced from the reality of the present.
We really could be headed for a dystopia right now. There is a greater than zero chance it could happen in our lifetimes. But obviously we should not aim for it. However, if utopia is also not a possible future, then what kind of future should we hope and plan for?
Kevin Kelly is five years older than me. How does he not understand that we are living in a dystopia right now?
This guy is wedded to the notion that technology is the solution to everything. He's blind to reality.
It's the solution to nothing.
At best, technology is a temporary band-aid to the problems of modernity. An ugly hack. Another pitch in the Ponzi Scheme of "progress."
It's like Doc and his "MyTerms." (Which doesn't even merit a Wikipedia entry?) It's another tech protocol band-aid that will be routed around, gamed, cheated and ignored into irrelevance.
All of our problems stem from the "first principles." We have created a world that rewards selfishness and cheating and theft and calls it "success." A world that seems to locate the meaning of life in material wealth and status and "power."
There is no path to "Protopia" that doesn't pass through the destruction of the pernicious notions that are the foundation of this civilization.
✍️ Reply by emailTech
10:36 Sunday, 26 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 71.46°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 1.52mph
Words: 146
I've just installed the latest beta of Tinderbox so I wanted to see if the time issue I'd been seeing is still present. Not so, at least on this post.
For the most part, Golden Gate has been pretty well behaved. Launches are faster, but I've noticed that waking from sleep can be annoyingly slow. Sheep Shaver, the 68K Mac emulator doesn't work and when it fails it kind of locks up the computer, forcing a reboot.
Parallels works well. Something I didn't really want to know, but having bought it and Windows 11, I feel I should mention that it seems to work under MacOS 27.
Photos has lost Messages as a Share option, I have no idea why that would be the case. Seems like a regression. I suppose I should send some feedback.
That's probably enough about all that.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailEconomy
08:11 Sunday, 26 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 65.23°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 88% Wind: 3.96mph
Words: 304
I listened to this Paul Krugman discussion with Lina Khan as I was making breakfast, and of course competition in the context of tech firms and AI was central.
And in that context, the discussion was perfectly rational. That the absence of competition is a net negative.
But that's because it's embedded in the larger construction that is our economy, which is structured, mostly, on the concepts of capitalism.
But what purpose does an economy serve? It provides an abundance of things we don't need. It extracts resources from the environment and creates waste that becomes problematic. Waste is an "externality," a cost of a good or service that is not captured in its price. Is that a "good" economy? A "functioning" economy?
And what is "growth"? How is "economic growth" a good?
Can economies defy physics? Is economic growth sustainable?
Capitalism focuses on private ownership and private wealth.
What is "ownership"? It's an abstraction. An illusion that is propped up by laws and customs. It has no inherent existence or meaning in nature.
"Private property," used to be something sacred. That "a man's home is his castle." No one could tell you what you could do with your "private property."
Yet we make enormous exceptions whenever it's convenient or necessary. Everything from HOAs and zoning laws to eminent domain.
There is nothing concrete about the idea of "private property." It's a consensual illusion that benefits some at the expense of others. And whenever it's necessary or convenient, we remove that benefit from people who thought otherwise.
I don't think there's any way we can disentangle this mess.
A sustainable civilization is going to have to come up with a structure that doesn't rely on competition and capitalism, and doesn't view growth as an objective to be pursued at the expense of everything else.
✍️ Reply by emailEquality
07:19 Sunday, 26 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 63.55°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 4.41mph
Words: 319
Another book I'm going to have to add to the pile.
A fascinating chapter moves between Sumner’s laudatory musings about how “competition is hurrying on the survival of the fittest” and Carnegie’s more tormented conscience.
The concept of "competition" is embedded in our culture. The other night, in an effort to get her son into bed, Mitzi's daughter posed the effort as a race, "I'm going to beat you!"
I'm not suggesting that competition is a toxic concept. I am saying that the thoughtless embrace of competition as a means for ordering society or institutions is toxic. Competition has a place, but it's not above empathy, mutual respect, compassion, kindness and the other humane virtues.
We used to teach kids that, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game that counts." I don't think we do that very much anymore, if indeed we ever really did.
We call people "winners" and "losers." We have a president who demeans prisoners of war as "losers," because he prefers people "who don't get caught."
Does the idea of "merit" emerge from the idea of competition among individuals in society or organizations? Does competition give us the intellectual means of rationalizing ranking individuals, some being "better" than others? And where does that end?
But people are wedded to the notion of competition as something that is good in any context. "May the best man win," when winning is often a matter of chance. Victory "celebrations" often resemble riots. Identifying with sports teams becomes a kind of tribalism, where it's expected and encouraged to demean and denigrate the supporters of other teams. "All in good fun," I suppose.
Why can't we impose a moratorium on AI development? Because of competition, and the fear that if we did, then someone else would gain an advantage. The notion of cooperation or collaboration is crushed by the worship of competition.
We're doomed.
✍️ Reply by emailDespicable
06:55 Sunday, 26 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 63.05°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 4.41mph
Words: 21
Blind ambition. Grotesque. Dishonorable. Faithless. Selfish. Shameful. Embarrassing.
Whatever "leadership" qualities this individual possessed, he's just flushed them down the toilet.
✍️ Reply by emailDisclosure Day
20:51 Saturday, 25 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 69.53°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 5.21mph
Words: 208
We watched Disclosure Day the other night, as did Jack. Similarly, we enjoyed it as well.
I did have a bit of a problem with it from the standpoint of why. Why didn't the aliens just make themselves known? Why all the nonsense? Why traumatize two children?
And I thought that the Mad Orange King's release of all(?) the video files kind of took some of the punch out of the movie.
The ending was a bit of a disappointment, but I figured Spielberg had said everything he wanted to say, and I think that was the line about empathy.
I think that's what resonated with me most.
I go back to the fundamental flaw of our civilization is that it is based on capitalism and competition. Where does empathy fit in either of those two concepts, or the systems that evolved from them?
How does the idea of merit relate to the concept of competition? Does the idea of everyone and everything being in competition with everyone and everything else inform the notion that we can rank people? Assign some arbitrary value and give it a label that means that we can treat people differently based on an abstraction.
Anyway, we enjoyed the movie.
We're still doomed.
✍️ Reply by emailUpdate
06:58 Saturday, 25 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 58.91°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 5.79mph
Words: 521
It's been a minute.
So I saw the doc on Thursday. Great visit. She's younger than I thought, and an army veteran. Served two tours in Iraq as an enlisted medic. We talked about current events. We are of like minds.
Did a bunch of blood work, have another appointment in a couple of weeks to go over the results and discuss next steps.
We still have company, so it's a full house here.
In the new house, the plumbing is going in that will be below the slab. We hope to pour the slab on Thursday. It's beginning to give me a greater sense of reality in terms of it being a house and not just a hole in the ground.
I've installed Parallels and Windows 11 so I can use the 30 day free trial of LoopCAD to try and figure out the most efficient way to run the radiant heating piping in the slab. Oof! I'm not sure I can figure this thing out in time. It wants to run a full Manual J calculation, but apparently you can manually enter the heat loss, so I need to find that video. I'm afraid I may have spent almost $300 to no good effect.
We have a professional plumber, Gary, who is helping Brad with the plumbing layout and he has experience with radiant floor piping as well. If I can't figure something out, we'll go with his recommendation.
We'll be moving a lot of dirt on Monday. Ken, the excavator, is coming back to finish putting stone beneath the slab to bring it up to the footer level. Then he's got to move the mounds of earth around the basement so we can use a telehandler to set the floor trusses after the slab is poured. We're planning on using most of the dirt to form a berm at the north side of the property where the neighbor has expressed some disappointment with having to see our house. (They can't in the summer, because of the trees. In the winter, they may be able to see part of it.) So we'll make a berm and put some plantings on it so that eventually they will never have to set eyes on our place except when they're coming up their driveway.
People are weird.
While Ken's here, we'll probably also run the line from the well to the new house. It'll just be a water line, the pressure switch in this house will control the well pump for both houses. They're hydraulically connected at the well, so when we turn the water on in the new house the drop in pressure will be sensed in both houses. Turns on at 30psi and off at 50psi.
We dropped in at the local credit union and inquired about a HELOC, (home equity line of credit). I'll be taking that on for my portion of the cost beyond what I have from my portion of the sale of our Florida home. I may use it to put in ground-mounted solar as well. We shall see.
As usual, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailConcrete Curing
Current Wx: Temp: 65.34°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 12.39mphWords: 380
I have a little FLIR camera that used to plug into iPhones through the Lightning port. Now I use it with an old iPod I keep for pretty much just this.
I took some pictures with it last night, and then again this morning. What is recorded here is the exposed concrete at the top of the wall at about 80°F. The EPS foam is obviously cooler in the blue and dark green tones. Where you see brighter green in between individual ICF blocks is likely warm water that has migrated from the concrete through capillary action. The part of the wall most distant from the camera is warmer, likely because it is radiating into a smaller space and facing a nearby wall of shale that had warmed throughout the day yesterday. The part of the wall nearest the camera has more space between it and the excavated wall, which is shale and wet clay.
Most interesting to me are the footings in bright green, the warmest part of the wall structure apart from the exposed concrete at the top. Heat is being transferred from the curing concrete to the footings below. When the backfill is eventually completed, that area will likely remain about 55°F year-round. Since there is no insulation around the footings, they are in thermal contact with the ground, and so heat that is transferred from the air above ground, through the EPS foam to the concrete, will transfer to the region of lower temperature down toward the basement and the footings, before it migrates to the interior of the house. This is "thermal lag." What isn't well characterized, to my knowledge, is the temporal dimension, i.e. how long does it take heat from outside the house to migrate inside sufficient to warm the interior.
The west end of the house will be mostly glass, so there will be a lot of solar gain, though that is mitigated to some extent by the large extended roof over the deck. When the sun is lower during winter, that roof covering will be less effective, but the solar gain will be more welcome.
We haven't tried to design a "passive house," but we do have some features of such a design.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailBasement Pour
Current Wx: Temp: 73.42°F Pressure: 1003hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 13.47mphWords: 373
Well, that's done!
They finished everything just before the rain arrived, so we got lucky. There was some smokiness returning as well, and the weather seems to have pushed that out too.
They've got to let those walls cure a bit and then they'll take down the bracing and begin working on the slab. I have to figure out where the PEX piping will go for the radiant heat. But first they have to lay out the plumbing, interior wall footers, add stone to bring everything up to grade, compact it all, lay PEX then rebar, then pour. (Well, there's a vapor barrier, and the insulation on top of that as well too.)
Once that's done, they can bring in the floor joists and set those, followed by the subfloor, which is necessary for the bracing for the next courses of ICF blocks. I'm guessing we're looking at a couple of more weeks before we pour the walls of the main floor.
Then the challenge will be the gable ends. I have no idea how that's going to go, but I'm not the guy doing it.
All I did was watch all morning, and I'm exhausted. I can't imagine what Brad and Derrick feel like.
We had a final design meeting for the timber frame deck and porch and resolved all the outstanding questions regarding the design. We're hopeful now that the roof decks will all align properly. We learned that if we want to get the roof on this fall, we'd better hustle because a lot of the good teams are already booked out two years! Yeesh!
I met with CleanLife LED to do a notional layout of the low-voltage DC lighting. That should be enough for them to quote us for the bill of materials. Not every switch will be remotely operated, because the associated controller is $50, and the switch is $20. So we'll still be running wiring to many switch locations, but it'll be doorbell wire. Once we order the material, they'll do an actual wiring plan for our installer.
Still outstanding is the cost of getting utility power to the house, and we're expecting that to be a big expense.
In the meantime, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailCharacter
09:43 Sunday, 19 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 62.62°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 10.42mph
Words: 692
I watch a lot of YouTube videos. That's probably not something to be proud of.
When I was single, I could sit down and spend a couple of hours writing a blog post. That was mostly in the Groundhog Day era. Today I'm lucky if I get 45 minutes. And it bugs me because I feel like I have something important to say, but I can't make the time to say it.
Hopefully that'll change once the new house is done and I'll have the "Dave Cave."
Anyway, AI came up again at the Tinderbox meetup. The first half was a worthwhile exploration of the Attribute Browser; but the host had kind of given people in the forum a reading assignment about AI and that was about the last third of the meetup.
I wasn't planning on saying anything, but I got called on.
I don't really have a strong opinion about AI. That feels like the right position to have, because it seems like we're surrounded by people with strong opinions about AI, which suggests to me that nobody knows anything. It's impossible to have a nuanced discussion because everyone already comes to it with a set of fixed notions that they just want to argue about.
AI doesn't scare me. If AI is an existential threat to humanity or civilization, tell it to take a number. We have plenty of those confronting us already, and it isn't clear to me at all that AI is of greater magnitude than any of the others.
What scares me is climate change, extreme wealth inequality, rising authoritarianism, ignorance, and disease.
And all those threats are the products of our culture, society and economy. "We have met the enemy, and they is us," as Pogo said.
The seeds of our destruction were sown long, long ago. The fatal flaws of our civilization are not seen as flaws. Indeed, they are regarded as the pillars of our success. Capitalism, competition and individual liberty divorced from responsibility.
We delude ourselves about the things we supposedly value. You can tell what a culture values by what it teaches its young. We teach ours the minimal skills necessary to be a functioning member of the economy, chiefly as consumers.
We don't teach values. We don't teach morals. We don't teach ethics.
We impose rules, and that's not the same as teaching.
We don't teach those things because we do not value those things. We do not value them because they offer no way to compete, no opportunity to monetize, no way to achieve status or rank in the hierarchy. Indeed, ethics, morals and values all serve to impede those goals in a culture based on competition.
Our children learn from the screens they peer into every day. They learn from watching their parents.
Capitalism, competition and individual liberty divorced from responsibility do not build character. It is no surprise we have a transactional, hedonistic, meaningless culture.
It is no surprise that Donald Trump is our president, that we are confronting existential challenges from the climate consequences of our industrial society, which is driven mainly by consumerism and waste. They are the logical outcomes of a culture, society and economy that are devoid of human values.
It is probably too late to save this civilization. Perhaps it is not too late to record the lessons of its collapse, so that whatever follows can avoid them. One advantage that whatever follows will have is that it will not have the enormous quantities of fossil fuels to supply the energy that accelerated our errors and masked our mistakes.
Anyway, back to YouTube and character. I watched a video that included a conversation between Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark and David French, ostensibly about character. I have a lot of problems with David French, and I'm not certain about the nature of his character.
Next I listened to an interview with John Bolton. He's a despicable human being. No one should take so much pride in their bloody-mindedness.
Finally, and thankfully, I watched an interview with retired general Stanley McChrystal.
If you think character matters, it's worth watching the whole thing.
✍️ Reply by emailOne More Time
19:49 Saturday, 18 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 67.06°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 8.75mph
Words: 7
Yep, still twelve hours in the future.
✍️ Reply by emailOkay, What Time Is It?
19:32 Saturday, 18 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 67.62°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 7.36mph
Words: 9
Apparently it's 7:32PM.
But it's really 7:32AM.
✍️ Reply by emailAround the 'Verse
18:56 Saturday, 18 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 66.54°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 7.36mph
Words: 514
I think "blogoverse" is a better neologism than "blogosphere," though I suppose blogosphere has been around long enough that it's no longer a neologism.
Anyway, Loren is feeling uninspired. This too shall pass.
Other Loren is sharing photos from his trip back home.
Both Lorens inspire me for their longevity. Not only in blogging but in breathing. How many octogenarian feeds do you follow?
Speaking of longevity, my appointment got moved up to the 23rd of this month. That's a welcome improvement. I'm anxious to know how my kidney is doing and to start this GLP-1 thing. I also scheduled my first appointment for getting my cataracts removed. As I thought about that this morning, I worried about my habit of rubbing my eyes.
I worry about a lot of things.
Rob is on the road to the West Coast with his daughter. Drive safely, Rob. Best wishes for a safe trip.
AKMA is breathing and blogging and reading and praying and running. Sounds like a full life!
Jack is trying to stick with Linux.
Bicycle for Your Mind is waxing rhapsodic over MojoPad. Not my jam, but interesting to see a new player in the note-taking space.
Tao of Mac is on a bit of a tear of late.
Smoke is back. Had a fairly clear day yesterday. Found the outdoor air quality sensor. It was in the closet, not the garage. But I wasn't able to get it to pair with the base station, so I ordered another one. I don't think the smoke is as bad as it was on Thursday, but I can't see the far side of the lake again.
I think the word "fools" doesn't get enough use. At least, I find I default to "idiots," and that's not accurate. "Stupid" and "idiots" refer to levels of intelligence. Intelligent people are often foolish. Some foolish things are harmless, others are fatal. Being foolish about climate change is fatal, and it's hard to convey the severity of this form of intellectual irresponsibility with the simple word "fool."
"Fucking fools," comes close, but still lacks the acutance that "stupid" or "idiot" seem to capture.
Whatever, these fools are responsible for the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people by now. And the number will grow exponentially over time.
We're going to go Rootsfest today. It's supposed to rain, maybe even thunderstorms. One of Mitzi's second-cousins is performing there. My optometrist is in Trumansburg, and when I went to pick up my new glasses yesterday (modest improvement) I asked if they were looking forward to it. Evidently not. One woman said she stays out of T-burg that weekend.
I recall driving through it one day a few years ago when we were heading back to Florida. A lot of cars and tents and people. I guess I'll bring a weather-sealed camera. Tickets weren't cheap, so I hope the weather cooperates a little.
Of course, rain might clear the air of some of this smoke too.
And the beat, and the blogs, go on...
✍️ Reply by emailMorning Sky
Current Wx: Temp: 58.28°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 1.9mphWords: 284
It seems like there's less smoke in the air this morning. I can't smell it, but I still can't see the west side of Seneca Lake.
We're hoping to pour concrete on Tuesday, weather permitting. Backup is Thursday. Meetings on Tuesday about lighting and the deck and porch.
Making some progress on the HVAC design. Hope to have something soon to shop around to some plumbing and heating contractors in the area.
I received the demo kit for the CleanLife LED low-voltage DC lighting the other day. I put it together yesterday morning and played with it. I was wondering about the range of the kinetic wireless switches, so I took it out into the garage and I was able to switch the lights on and off from out there, so I'm pretty confident they'll work in the house.
The switch doesn't have the same tactile feeling of a regular light switch. It's a rocker, so when you release pressure, it returns to its neutral position. It does have a stiff action and a pronounced click, but it's definitely a different experience than a regular light switch.
You can control the temperature and brightness of the lights with the switch, though again, it's a different experience than using a push-button dimmer, or a slider. After turning the lights on, pressing and holding the top of the switch will change the brightness, pressing and holding the bottom of the switch controls the color temperature. That can also be controlled from an app as well.
I may get a 110vac puck LED from the hardware store and wire it up and compare the power draw.
I may not, as well.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailOblivion
17:21 Friday, 17 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 57.7°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 2.55mph
Words: 255
Last night was another episode in the ongoing public humiliation of the United States of America.
I think I'm past the point of being dumbfounded. I guess it's just his commitment to the bit, or maybe it is dementia. I know the people around him blow smoke up his ass as they're kissing it every minute of every day; but I have to wonder just how much he believes his own bullshit about America being respected ("as never before").
I know he lies as reflexively as breathing, but does he think anyone else is believing his bullshit?
I also know there is roughly about a third of the electorate who will believe him no matter what he says, and every Republican in office, but these people are fools. Which seems to be just about enough to destroy democracy. It's supposed to be "majority rule," but not so much, as it turns out.
It's embarrassing.
He sounded like an incoherent, two-bit huckster. He's become a caricature of a caricature. He's a prop used by the cynical opportunists who are really running the government. Forget "the deep state," it's criminals and fraudsters who are calling the shots.
It's certain that he and his lickspittle sycophants will do everything they can to try and thwart the will of the people in November. We'll see what happens.
If the courts can stop the worst of his efforts, perhaps we can stop the bleeding. If they roll over and enable outright autocracy, then I'm afraid of what comes next.
✍️ Reply by emailRed Sky at Morning
18:30 Thursday, 16 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 65.34°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 4.07mph
Words: 101
I didn't get a shot of it because I was headed back to bed, but there was an eerie red glow kind of suffusing the landscape this morning. Canadian wildfire smoke arrived yesterday.
There won't be any work on the house today, but there are other things Brad can do.
It's cool out, but we've got the windows closed and the air filter running. I have an indoor PM2.5 monitor for the house and it's good. I had one for outside, I think it's in the garage. I may have to go dig around for it.
The way we live now...
✍️ Reply by emailBack to the Future
17:05 Monday, 13 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 85.57°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 55% Wind: 6.06mph
Words: 463
A couple of weeks back, at the Tinderbox meetup, something prompted me to look for something on eBay, I don't recall what.
But "the algorithm," surfaced a used copy of an old Mac PIM app, Arrange, by Common Knowledge. I became familiar with Arrange after it was sold off to CE Software to be reborn as WebArranger. (Dumb name.)
Yes, a dumb name, but a remarkable app!
Things were moving pretty fast back in those days, the latter 90s. The Web was the new hotness, and $495 PIM packages were not. I think WebArranger retailed for something like $59.99. I could be wrong. Maybe less.
Anyway, it was pretty much just Arrange with some bookmark templates and some functionality for capturing things from a website.
I didn't really care so much about any of that, I was fascinated by its PIM capabilities. It was structured around an outliner interface that could include calendar views in an item. It had been described as an "object-oriented data base," because that was hot. I don't know much about that, but it does resemble a database in that you can customize records and display notes in tables and so on.
I don't recall exactly what happened, but Tinderbox came along, MacOS X, I went through a number of different Macs, and somehow Arrange slipped out of use.
Anyway, there was a complete used version, including the box, for $50. So I bought it.
I'd always regretted not having the complete Arrange docs. WebArranger came with little more than a pamphlet. I was mainly interested in the docs.
Of course, I wanted to play with it again, so I launched SheepShaver. I'd used it before, so it was configured with a MacOS 9.0.4 disk image and WebArranger was already installed. Unfortunately, SheepShaver seems to have an incompatibility with MacOS 27. It'll run fine for a few minutes, then the external display goes black and the computer becomes completely unresponsive.
Le sigh.
As these things go, there was a link in one of the blogs I follow that pointed to a way to get Basilisk II to run on iOS. But I'll have to compile the source myself, so that'll be a learning opportunity. I don't know if I have the time to dive into that, but I think it'd be cool to have a Mac emulator running on iOS, so maybe I'll make some time. We shall see. Anything is possible in the era of "vibe coding."
I'd buy an old G4 Mac mini, but I don't have enough room for the stuff I'm using now. That may be a solution when the new house is complete (enough) and I can establish the Dave Cave, "a place for my stuff."
Anyway, as usual, the beta goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailDrone Shot
Current Wx: Temp: 72.19°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 77% Wind: 8.81mphWords: 87
My 9" iPad (9th version) is still on iOS 26 so I was able to control the DJI mini 2 using the DJI Fly app on the iPad.
It's not an ideal situation because you have to hold the controller separately, and it's hard to keep the iPad out of the sun's glare. Should be easier this afternoon after the sun gets behind the house a bit.
I'm going to try to use the mini 3 with the iPad next time. The camera is a little better.
✍️ Reply by emailETTD
09:52 Sunday, 12 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 70.77°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 3.85mph
Words: 83
Lindsey Graham.
I anticipate the online conspiracy industry to be posting theories regarding Russia, Ukraine, Iran and Democrats at any moment. Probably already have.
You only have one life to live. How will Graham be remembered? What did his life mean?
Did he expect to have enough time to fashion a redemption arc? Did he just not care? Did he die happy, having achieved "power" and "influence"?
It's wrong to celebrate anyone's death, but I for one will not be celebrating his life.
✍️ Reply by emailBasement
Current Wx: Temp: 75.63°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 7.38mphWords: 615
It's been almost a week since I'd last posted.
Kind of a busy week. Wednesday through Friday were spent traveling and attending my niece's wedding. It was a nice time. My youngest sister managed to bring Mom along from Clifton Park, near Albany, to Williamsville, near Buffalo. It was a bit of an ordeal for Mom, given her mobility issues, but I think she enjoyed being there and spending time with her children and grandchildren.
Work on the house is progressing. We hired a new timber frame company for the deck and the porch. Getting fired by the previous company was a blessing, since we're getting a larger deck, in white oak, and a better design for a lot less money. Go figure.
White oak was an extra-cost option with the first company, so we were going to use Douglas fir. The problem with Douglas fir is that it's a haven for carpenter bees. White oak has a much denser grain and is less attractive to carpenter bees.
We met the company owner and he's a remarkable guy. Restores classic cars as a hobby. Easy to work with, we walked through his house, which is all timber frame construction, to see his deck and got a clear idea about what to expect. We're very excited.
I wanted to use my DJI mini 3 to take shots of the new house. It worked fine last week, but I guess Beta 2 of iOS 27 may have introduced some sort of incompatibility. I couldn't get either the mini 3 or the mini 2 to connect with their respective controllers. Very frustrating.
I think we're going to have some challenges with the elevation of the first floor, based on how high the basement rises out of the ground. Our goal was to have only one step from the porch to the ground, and it's not clear to me that that will be achievable absent a great deal of grading. We'll figure something out.
I got my eyes examined on Tuesday and a new prescription. My astigmatism has gotten worse somehow. I'll be correctable to 20/40 in the left eye and 20/80 in the right. The optometrist said I was a good candidate for cataract surgery now, and that would resolve nearly all my vision issues, apart from near-field. I'm going to look into setting it up soon. My brother had his done a few years ago and he only uses glasses for reading now. He can see clearly mid-field to distance, so no need for glasses driving.
There's a new Medicare program that allows qualified Medicare patients to be prescribed GLP-1 medications for $50 a month for about the next 18 months. The program ends in December 2027. I'm pretty sure I qualify because of my BMI and Stage 3a kidney disease. The process to actually receive the medication is very convoluted and counterintuitive. You have to be denied twice and then have your doctor write some magic words in "all caps" (literally) in order to ultimately receive the meds.
It looks to me as though Medicare is undertaking a kind of large-scale study to see if GLP-1 interventions can reduce healthcare spending by treating obesity. I don't really care, I'd just like to get to a healthy weight to preserve my kidney function. I weighed myself this morning and I weigh more than I ever have before. I thought I'd been maintaining, but I guess there was a subconscious reason why I hadn't been weighing myself lately.
Le sigh.
Anyway, hopefully I get my eyes fixed and my weight down and life will be grand.
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailThe Life Performative
09:33 Sunday, 5 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 72.25°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 2.57mph
Words: 620
Social media makes us the star of our own reality series. Blogging does too, but most blogs lack the kind of immediate feedback mechanisms of social media platforms. The marmot doesn't get "likes" or "re-" anything, so most of the experience is like shouting into the void.
Which has charms of its own.
But the social media platforms are literally that. Stages, where users perform their online personas. I have to wonder how much of that online presence is shaped by the feedback people receive. It has to have some effect.
We started talking a bit about other note-taking apps in yesterday's Tinderbox meet-up. This prompted a line of thought in my mind, which kind of kept me preoccupied during much of the session.
I always thought it was odd that certain types of apps seem to appear in clusters. Roam, Obsidian, LogSeq, etc. Or "distraction-free" writing environments, like iA Writer, Bear, Ulysses, and probably dozens more.
I think a lot of it has to do with social media. Software applications have become a kind of fashion, and we want to be perceived as being au courant. Smart. Hip. Cool.
Plain text.
Markdown.
Bullshit.
I think some people use these apps to good effect. They become more productive, or something. But I have a strong suspicion that most people just wear them as a set of clothes for a while, and then move on to the latest hot trend.
It's like cameras. Same thing.
I think if you're a photographer, not in the "professional" sense, but in the sense of you're someone who can't not "take pictures," the particular brand of camera you use isn't important. Unless you're a performer, an "influencer." Then you probably want to appeal to an audience of fans, or garner attention and sponsorship from a manufacturer.
If you're a writer, you'd probably write even if the only thing you had was a pencil and a stack of loose-leaf paper. If you feel as though you write "better" with a keyboard, maybe you'd write with any kind of typewriter. Similarly, if you value the features of a "word processor," and the only thing you could use was Microsoft Word, you'd write with Microsoft Word.
Because it's about writing, not about keyboard shortcuts, or user interface "distractions."
If you're someone who "thinks," do you constantly change software applications? Is your "thinking" confined to critiquing "tools for thought?"
There was a guest at one of the Tinderbox meetups some time ago, who has used TheBrain for years and years. Decades maybe. And he has all these "thoughts" collected in TheBrain. Now, I have to give this guy credit, he found his app and he stuck to it. He doesn't flit from app to app.
I don't know. Maybe he does, and he records his "thoughts" about those apps in TheBrain.
But he also couldn't articulate how collecting all those thoughts had changed his life. How it made his life better. He could perform astounding feats of recall; but to what end?
In the end, it seemed to me that it was just a habit, and it existed mostly so he could perform these remarkable demos. He was a performer.
We don't understand what computers are for. Some people do. I don't claim to be among them, though I tend to think I have a better idea than most of these "thought leaders."
I think most people regard computers and software as a kind of signifier, like most commodity consumer products, and use them in that way. At least, the kinds of people who are on "social media," which is all about signification.
Anyway, something about "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailCrime 101
17:52 Saturday, 4 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 75.56°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 7.9mph
Words: 30
We watched Crime 101 the other night and I couldn't help but view it as a kind of remake of Heat, albeit without a "crew."
That said, it was entertaining.
✍️ Reply by emailFoundation Set
Current Wx: Temp: 79.02°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 11.27mphWords: 393
Moving along well for now. Footer drains and backfill this week, followed by stacking the basement walls. Weather permitting, we may pour the basement this week.
It was Florida hot this week. The guys would be on site at 0600 and wrapping up around noon. The worst of the heat should be over for now, but that sun is still pretty intense. We'll have a couple of pop-up canopies in there for shade.
There was a pretty good video that dropped last week about using a chilled-water air handler and some of the advantages. It's not a great video in terms of camera work or audio, and the HVAC presenter kept talking to the camera, but the information was solid. I was surprised at the small size of the air handler, but the big takeaway was the value of chilled water as a medium for dehumidification.
Because the heat pump can control the temperature of the water and the air handler has a speed for dehumidification, it can run for a long time without significantly (undesirably) cooling the house, and achieve a great deal of dehumidification, without dumping sensible heat into the house as a result. (You're dumping it outdoors at the condenser.)
I wondered if we might be able to get away from a whole-home dehumidifier entirely, but I suspect that winter may pose some challenges with the heat pump running in heating mode.
We've got another timber frame builder set up for the deck and porch, and they should be able to deliver by this fall. We're meeting with them on Tuesday and hopefully we'll get a reasonable quote soon after.
We're hanging fire on the floor joist info, specifically the size of the duct bay. It's the busiest part of the building season in New York, so communications can get jammed up. I need to get that information to Energy Vanguard so they can design the ductwork.
Mitzi's cabinet guy noticed a discrepancy in the plans, fortunately, so we'll have to move a stub-wall at the entryway over about six inches. That's why subs do shop drawings. It's frustrating because we paid the architect additional money over his quoted price because he supposedly had to correct some dimensions. But he did resolve some other issues, so I guess it evens out.
And the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailFrost Wall
Current Wx: Temp: 91.47°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 64% Wind: 7.87mphWords: 99
Pretty damn not today. Brad and Derrick were on site today at 0630 to stack and reinforce the frost wall. They have a few things left to complete before the pour scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
The heat has a lot of local social media worrying about power failures. After the last two weeks of unreliable service, Mitzi asked me this morning if we should consider adding solar to the roof of the house after it's completed, rather than waiting for the garage to be built.
Music to my ears, assuming we can find the means.
The beat goes on...
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